1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printing apparatus and printing apparatus control method.
2. Description of the Related Art
A printing apparatus which forms a printed material using a plurality of types of media (sheets) has conventionally been known. When such a printing apparatus forms a printed material using a plurality of types of media, media contained in the printed material are not limited to those having undergone print processing by the printing apparatus. In some cases, a preprinted sheet having undergone print processing in advance by another printing apparatus is stored in a feeding unit and inserted into media to undergo print processing in formation of a printed material. Hence, for example, even a printing apparatus capable of only monochrome printing can form a printed material containing a color page by inserting a preprinted sheet bearing a color image.
Note that preprinted sheets as media to be inserted are assumed to be stored at a plurality of locations. The first storage location can be a sheet feeding cassette which holds media to undergo print processing in order to supply them to the printing apparatus (to be simply referred to as a sheet feeding cassette). When post-processing units configured to perform various post-processes for media discharged from the printing apparatus include an insertion unit called an inserter, the insertion unit can be used as the second storage location.
Techniques regarding the above technique are disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Nos. 2001-199140, 2006-239931, and 2009-123123.
As described above, there is a printing apparatus including two types of feeding units, that is, a feeding unit (first feeding unit) for feeding media to the printer main body which performs print processing, and an inserter (second feeding unit) arranged on the succeeding stage of the printer main body.
However, the conventional technique unitarily manages media suited to be set in the first feeding unit and those suited to be set in the second feeding unit, without discriminating them. For this reason, the operator may designate the type of medium to be printed without taking account of which of the first and second feeding units is suitable for setting each medium.